#liberal #anticapitalism

An #EconomicDemocracy is a market economy where most firms are structured as #WorkerCoops.

#liberalism
#coops #cooperatives

  • 14 Posts
  • 63 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 18th, 2023

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  • J Lou@mastodon.socialtoScience Memes@mander.xyzFlowchart for STEM
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    2 months ago

    The ideology is often implicit in how the model is explained. For example, 2 simple facts that go unmentioned.

    1. Only persons can be responsible for anything. Things, no matter how causally efficacious, can’t be responsible for what is done with them
    2. The employer receives 100% of the property rights for the produced outputs and liabilities for the used-up inputs. The workers qua employees get 0% legal claim on that. This fact is obfuscated using the pie metaphor

    @science_memes



  • Marx ≠ anti-capitalism

    There are other modern anti-capitalist argument derived from the classical laborists such as Proudhon.

    Markets ≠ capitalism

    In postcapitalism, we can use markets where appropriate. We have practical examples of non-capitalist firms with worker coops and 100% ESOPs.

    There are theoretical mechanisms for collective ownership that can be shown to be efficient like COST.

    There are theoretical non-market democratic public goods funding mechanisms

    @science_memes



  • J Lou@mastodon.socialtoScience Memes@mander.xyzFlowchart for STEM
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    2 months ago

    Sure, in theory, that is what it should be about. In practice, many economists bias the theories they develop to make sure the conclude in favor of their own ideological biases. Often, metaphors are treated as deep truths while simple facts are treated as superficial and ignored or even obfuscated due to their ideological implications if they were plainly stated @science_memes











  • J Lou@mastodon.socialtoAsklemmy@lemmy.mlDeleted
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    7 months ago

    Perhaps, but there isn’t a good reason to place such a restriction on worker co-ops. Worker co-ops shouldn’t be forced to buy the entire thing when a segment of its services would do.

    Liberals as a group tend to support capitalism. Liberalism as a political philosophy can have implications that claimed adherents don’t endorse. After mapping out all the logical implications of liberal principles, it becomes clear that coherent liberalism is anti-capitalist @asklemmy



  • J Lou@mastodon.socialtoAsklemmy@lemmy.mlDeleted
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    7 months ago

    Worker co-ops don’t necessarily have full worker ownership of the means of production because a worker coop can lease means of production from a third party. It is not socialist. Nor do I mean to suggest it is capitalist. It can’t be capitalism as it has no capitalists as you correctly point out. Since you recognize that it is technically correct to say a worker co-op market economy has private property, you recognize

    Capitalism ≠ private property @asklemmy


  • J Lou@mastodon.socialtoAsklemmy@lemmy.mlDeleted
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    7 months ago

    When I said capitalists there I meant liberal defenders of capitalism.

    A market economy of worker coops has private property, so can’t be socialist. Market socialism is a misnomer and unnecessarily associates with a label people already have preconceived notions about @asklemmy


  • J Lou@mastodon.socialtoAsklemmy@lemmy.mlDeleted
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    7 months ago

    The normative basis of private property, which capitalists claim to adhere to, is people’s inalienable right to appropriate the positive and negative fruits of their labor. Capitalism routinely violates this principle in the employment contract. Satisfying the principles of private property would require that all firms be worker cooperatives. The principles of liberalism imply anti-capitalism. It is entirely compatible to be a liberal and an anti-capitalist @asklemmy



  • J Lou@mastodon.socialtoAsklemmy@lemmy.mlDeleted
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    7 months ago

    Many liberals are anti-worker, but the political philosophy of liberalism is not inherently anti-worker. Liberal anti-capitalists like David Ellerman illustrate this using liberal principles of justice to argue for a universal inalienable right to workers’ self-management and abolition of the employer-employee relationship @asklemmy




  • After capitalism,

    1. All firms should be democratic worker coops. The legal system would recognize the inalienable right to workers’ control.
    2. Land and natural resources should be collectively owned with revenue from private use of this collective property going out as a UBI. The atmosphere is included and any carbon fees are included.
    3. Pools of collectivized capital democratically controlled by workers in member worker coops. Each worker coop leases all its capital from the pool


  • Capitalism is the opposite of democracy. In a capitalist firm, the managers are not accountable to the governed (i.e. workers). The employer is not a delegate of the workers. They manage the company in their own name not in the workers’ name. Managers do not have to have dictatorial control. It is entirely possible to have management be democratically accountable to the workers they govern as in a worker cooperative.

    Capitalism v. Communism is a false dilemma. There are other options.